Police vote against right to strike

2:55PM BST 16 May 2002

Rank-and-file police officers today rejected affiliating themselves to the TUC and adopting the right to strike.

If carried, the motion at the annual conference of the Police Federation of England and Wales would have seen the organisation, which represents 128,000 officers, taking the first steps towards overturning a ban on industrial action dating back to 1919.

Some officers had begun to think in terms of industrial action following confrontations with David Blunkett over his pay and reform proposals.

But the day after the Home Secretary admitted to the Bournemouth conference that he had "made mistakes", only a handful of the 1,000 police delegates voted in favour of the motion.

The motion stated that the Federation should "undertake research and examine the consequences" of affiliating into the TUC and "removing the restriction on police officers taking industrial action in furtherance of a trade dispute".

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Arguing against it, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation Glen Smyth said the public was "key" and other speakers shared the view that the police would lose popular support if they went down the union road.

However some police officers argued strongly for the motion. Pc Colin Mortimer from Durham told the conference: "If you beat a dog long enough it will bite back, we have been beaten by ministers for too long and we need teeth to bite back.

He added: "Desperate times call for desperate measures, we should seek affiliation to the TUC, end humiliation and bite back."

Les Allen, an officer from Thames Valley, said: "Yesterday we had the speech of appeasement from David Blunkett - they were empty words, empty promises, he told us he was sorry, it didn't amount to anything.

"He told us what a good job we were doing but don't forget three weeks ago this man was prepared to take the money from our pockets."

But Clint Elliott, the general secretary of the Police Federation, said: "Our secret weapon is public opinion, our ratings may have gone down but we are still a lot more popular than politicians and trade union leaders.

"We are the internal defenders of the Realm, if the police ever went on strike the public would never understand how we could do that. If we ever were to work to rule we would give up policing to someone else, perhaps to Community Support Officers."